Engineering the Coordination Environment of Single-Atom Platinum Anchored on Graphdiyne for Optimizing Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Two Pt single-atom catalysts (SACs) of Pt-GDY1 and Pt-GDY2 were prepared on graphdiyne (GDY) supports. The isolated Pt atoms are dispersed on GDY through the coordination interactions between Pt atoms and alkynyl C atoms in GDY, with the formation of five-coordinated C-1-Pt-Cl-4 species in Pt-GDY1 and four-coordinated C-2-Pt-Cl-2 species in Pt-GDY2. Pt-GDY2 shows exceptionally high catalytic activity for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), with a mass activity up to 3.3 and 26.9 times more active than Pt-GDY1 and the state-of-the-art commercial Pt/C catalysts, respectively. Pt-GDY2 possesses higher total unoccupied density of states of Pt 5d orbital and close to zero value of Gibbs free energy of the hydrogen adsorption (|Delta GP(H)*(Pt)|) at the Pt active sites, which are responsible for its excellent catalytic performance. This work can help better understand the structure-catalytic activity relationship in Pt SACs.